


A Carstairs Christmas Carol

by leosabwriter



Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, M/M, pre-Chain of Gold, the holiday fic no one asked for, they‘re all like 14-15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28154949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leosabwriter/pseuds/leosabwriter
Summary: The Carstairs Family attends a Christmas celebration at Herondale manor.Cordelia and Alastair both receive unexpected gifts.Pre-Chain of Gold
Relationships: Alastair Carstairs & Cordelia Carstairs, Alastair Carstairs/Thomas Lightwood, Cordelia Carstairs & Lucie Herondale, Cordelia Carstairs/James Herondale
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	A Carstairs Christmas Carol

Prague, Poland  
December, 1900

It had been the first Sunday of December, when the Carstairs family gathered around their wooden breakfast table in their new house in the east side of Prague. 

They had only recently arrived so everything was still fairly new for the two Carstairs children, both having different things in mind that morning.

“The mailman delivered us a letter earlier!” Cordelia bursted out while her father was going through their daily mail, handing the mundane newspaper almost automatically to Alastair.

“I know I’m not supposed to go through the mail by myself” Cordelia continued without waiting for her fathers response. “But when I saw that it was from the Herondales I just had to!!”

At the mention of the Herondale name her father looked up to meet Cordelia’s excited eyes.

“I assume you have already read the letter then? Do tell us the matter.” 

There was a slight nervousness in her fathers features that Cordelia couldn’t quite understand.

“It was an invitation.” she explained with a little less excitement in her voice. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Herondale are hosting their annual Christmas celebration at Herondale manor in Indris and do want us to join them! Oh isn’t that wonderful father? We have never celebrated Christmas before!” 

Her older brother looked up from his newspaper and his expressive eyebrows furrowed.

“Because it is a mundane tradition and nothing Nephilim should associate with, let alone celebrate.” 

Cordelia casted a glance at her brother who continued to focus once again on the mundane newspaper in front of him.

It was a strange thing, she thought. No matter how much her brother despised mundane culture he still read their newspaper every day.  
When she once asked him about it he simply explained he was doing it for research purposes in the matter of possible demonic activities only. 

Cordelia thought of this explanation as hardly all but didn’t ask further.

She decided to focus her attention on her father again who seemed to be lost in thoughts.

“Oh please can we attend, Father? It would bring me such joy to see Lucie again, we haven’t had the pleasure of seeing each other in quite a long time!” 

Elias looked at his daughter, her dark eyes big.

“We shall see.”

Herondale manor,  
Idris  
Christmas Day, 1900

As it turned out the Carstairs family did indeed, to Cordelia’s joy, decide to attend the Christmas gathering at Herondale manor.

And so Cordelia found herself, in front of the big house, standing next to her parents and her brother, all prepped up in festive clothing. 

She was wearing a green dress, a dark red bow wrapped around her waist that matched the color of her hair which was pinned up beautifully.

Her mother insisted on bringing quite a few gifts for the host family and, just in case, for everyone else on the guest list as well.

Alastair seemed grumpier than usual, certainly not wanting to spend an entire evening with the Herondales, Lightwoods and Fairchilds. But to Cordelia’s luck he didn’t have much say in the matter and was forced to come along.

As the door swung open they were greeted by Tessa Herondale who was smiling as kind as always, as her husband emerged from behind.

“Merry Christmas! And Welcome at Herondale manor, we are so pleased to have you with us today.” Tessa said.

“Lucie hasn’t talked about anything besides your arrival, she is indeed so excited to see Cordelia again.” Will explained. “Do come in.”

As the Carstairs entered the hall they were greeted by a fair amount of cheerful voices, coming from the ball room. 

The other guests seemed to have all arrived already.

The house itself was decorated in red and green, christmas decoration in every corner, it almost looked like a mundane manor.

Cordelia assumed this resulted in both Tessa and Will Herondale being raised mundane, both having their own beloved traditions around this holiday that they wanted to share with their guests.

When they arrived in the festive ballroom, Cordelia felt like the main character of a fairytale. 

In the middle of the room was a gigantic Christmas tree, decorated lovely. Underneath it she noticed a fair amount of presents, all wrapped up with bows on top of them.

She was thrown out of her trance when she heard someone shout her name from across the room, small footsteps running towards them.

“Oh Cordelia you are here!!” Lucie yelled, running through the crowd while accidentally bumping into a few of the guests.

The small shadowhunter immediately wrapped her arms around Cordelia who returned the hug.

„I missed you a lot Lucie, I‘m certainly overwhelmed by the circumstances that we meet again.“ Cordelia said. „This is all so beautiful, like in a fairytale!“

Lucie laughed cheerfully „If it were a fairytale Christopher certainly wouldn’t have eaten all lemon tarts in the first 10 minutes of his arrival, or stupid James and Matthew wouldn‘t have disappeared the angel knows where.”

Cordelia felt a slight disappointment at the mention of James’ absence. Did he not want to at least greet her? She thought of them as friends, though she did not know him that well. 

But she also couldn’t blame him as there were quite a lot people gathered in the ballroom. 

“Oh how bad of a hostess I am, I haven’t even introduced you to everyone!! My deepest apologies. Let’s get started!” Lucie exclaimed in a dramatic tone.

Cordelia shot a glance at her family. To her pleased surprise her parents had already gone off to start conversation with one of the guests. 

As for Alastair he had disappeared out of sight, which wasn’t unusual for him. He tended to avoid social events as best as he could.

Caught in the spirit of christmas, she let herself get dragged along by Lucie, towards her group of friends.

Alastair did not let the Christmas spirit get near him. In fact he did all he could to avoid it.

Most importantly he wanted to avoid the boys from the academy that attended the event. 

Especially Matthew Fairchild and James Herondale who appeared to be even more annoyingly inseparable ever since their recent Parabatai ceremony.

As he couldn’t leave the event itself, he quickly found a chair next to the huge tree and picked up the book he had brought with him and got lost in it.

For some reason he felt a gaze upon him.

As he looked up, he noticed none other than small Thomas Lightwood staring at him.

His small appearance almost faded in with the adults that stood around him but Alastair still saw him clearly.

Once the other boy noticed Alastair’s gaze he went bright red, quickly engaging himself in a conversation with one of his sisters.

Which one, Alastair couldn’t tell, but he also didn’t really care if he was honest. They both looked the same in his eyes.

His gaze stayed a few more seconds on the boy who used to follow him around the academy, until turning his attention back to the book in his lap.

After Lucie had gone off to prepare a huge surprise, as she told her, Cordelia found herself on the huge balcony, trying to catch some fresh winter air.

Snow had already fallen in Idris and covered the trees and fields beautifully.

As it turned out, being introduced to every young shadowhunter their age, was quite exhausting. Even for her. 

Most of them she had already met on a different occasion, but she still felt like a total stranger who didn’t belong anywhere with them.

As she looked up at the sky she was grateful for the moment of peace and silence during the loud event she had left behind.

Suddenly she heard footsteps of someone joining her outside on the balcony.

She shot around almost reflexively, only to meet familiar golden eyes whose color always reminded her of cortana.

“James.” she said surprised . “I didn’t expect to see you at all today.“

The boy looked at her hesitatingly for a moment, clearly trying to find the right words.

„I‘m sorry if I was being rude.“ James explained calmly. „I‘m not very fond of social events and when Matthew offered to hide in the drawing room I let myself be pulled along.“ 

Cordelia felt her chest untighten a bit. So James didn’t actually hide from her but from the people in general. 

James moved next to her, staring out to the already darkened sky. 

Something was clearly bothering him but she did not dare to ask. It was none of her business after all.

For a moment they just stood there in silence, eyes on the winter wonderland in front of them.

Cordelia always thought there was something calming about James‘ presence, so she didn’t mind.

After a while she decided to break the silence only when James bursted out „I have something for you.“

„for me?“ Cordelia said quite in shock, not knowing what James could possibly have for her.

The boy pulled out a small box out of his pocket, wrapped up in blue paper with a red bow on top.

Cordelia took the present and opened it to cast a glance at the object.

„James...“ she simply said in shock.

Inside the box was a thin golden bracelet with tiny daisy pendants.In the middle of each daisy was a small diamond that shone brightly in the moonlight.

„You obviously don’t have to wear it..I mean- It only made me think of you, so I…“ He stammered .

„It‘s beautiful James.“ Cordelia simply said, feeling herself blush.

James looked at her for a moment to consider, a shy smile growing on his face.

And then suddenly he bent forward to kiss her on the cheek quickly, making his way back inside and leaving Cordelia all flushed, cheeks burning.

She immediately put the bracelet around her wrist and couldn’t stop staring at it all evening.

The evening had come to an end and the first guests headed home already.

Food was served, presents exchanged, everything seemed to have gone exactly how intended.

To Alastair‘s luck neither the Fairchild boy or his annoying friends dared to speak to him all evening. 

They only casted furious glances at him from time to time, but Alastair didn’t expect anything less after the way he treated them at the academy not so long ago.

He was once again sitting in his comfortable chair next to the tree.

An hour ago there were still a huge amount of wrapped up boxes spread around the huge tree. 

Now it was all gone.

Except for one box. 

As Alastair looked more closely he noticed a card with a name written on it.  
To his immense shock, written in cursive letters, his own name was written.

„Who in the angels name would be in their right mind to have a present for him?“

he thought, looking around to inspect if anyone was making a fun out of tricking him.

But there wasn’t. Everyone had already left the room, except for the Lightwood and Herondale families.

Carefully, he picked up the box to inspect it.

The first thing he saw when he opened it was a small folded piece of paper.

Christmas is most truly Christmas, when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.

Alastair scoffed, not even a name was written at the bottom. Who leaves a present without signing it?

As he lifted the sheet, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Inside the box was a small dagger, decorated with beautiful ornaments in the color of the sky. A golden theft beside it.

It was one of the most beautiful daggers he had ever seen before.

Was this a gift from Cordelia? Or his parents? It couldn’t be, they would have at least signed it or given it to him personally.

He didn’t have any friends under these people, so who would give this to him?

„Alastair joon it’s time to head home!“ he heard his mother call for him.

He quickly put the dagger back into the box, hid the box in his jacket pocket and quickly walked over to his family.

What Alastair didn’t know was, that a small boy with hazel eyes had nervously watched him unwrap the present and felt a slight satisfaction when Alastair walked past him with the tiny fade of a smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> this is kinda boring but I had this idea and wanted to write a holiday one shot, so enjoy:)


End file.
